FRIENDS AND HILL COUNTRY

April 5, 2011 Cottonwood Creek RV Park.

Wow, time does fly when you are having fun! We've continued to do a lot of visiting and hanging out with folks here in the park. We've also had some excursions here and there to include a trip to Cabelas in Buda, Texas. 

This past Sunday, we met a nice couple, Steve and Erin from Austin.  They are blog readers and drove out to our campsite to visit  with us and our neighbors. We really enjoyed meeting them and listening to their plans to full time in the near future. We shared a tasty grilled early dinner and enjoyed their company.

A few days ago we took our friends Dale and Betty to Hamilton Pool, a Travis County park. Joyce and I had been to the park last year and had decided it was a "must see" for this area.

It seemed that the county had made some improvement to part of the path along the stream to the pool.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a water fall this year in comparison to last year. The Hill Country in the Austin area hasn't received the normal amount of rainfall this year and it shows in the dry creek beds and smaller streams.

During our visit, there was a crew working to clean the natural pool and filter the water as the e-coli bacteria level was high. Another symptom of a lack of adequate rainfall and water flow.

Take a look at the pictures from last year for a comparison of the water fall with this year's flow.

We walked back towards the trailhead and decided to keep going for the short hike to the Pedernales River.

Below is the Pedernales River, clear but shallow.

Back at the trail head, we had to ascend another 1/4 mile to the parking lot. It was a beautiful hike and we couldn't have asked for better weather. It was actually very cool on this date. 

While on the topic of the weather, the weather has been generally mild. We've had some near misses with the rain. It will cloud up and spit, but no measurable rainfall. There doesn't seem to be a consistent weather pattern, some days are warm in the mid 80's with a few in the mid 90's. Low's are usually in the 60's. However, last night we had a cold front and the low's were in the upper 30's overnight!  The pollen is thick making everything outside yellow. Every morning I wake to a mess from the pollen on the vehicles. Somedays, it is dry enough to use my car duster to dust the pollen off of the truck and Jeep.
Yet another venture we took last year and did again yesterday, was a group trip to Llano, Texas and Cooper's Old Time Pit Barbeque.

 Click here for a good description of last year's adventure and more pics of the Cooper's Old Time Pit Barbeque experience. Once again the meal was fantastic, and the best we've had.

The Pit Barbeque and the short line of guests 

Below is the group from the park that all caravaned to Llano and Cooper's Old Time Pit Barbeque. The other major part of the trip was with the purpose of looking at the wild flowers and in particular the Blue Bonnets on Willow City Loop. What a disappointment this year! The dry conditions have been detrimental to the flowers and they were few and far between on the dry land. Click here for pics of last year's wild flowers. I was driving this year and didn't take any pictures.

We all had a great time and enjoyed the company. Once again we thank the owner's of Cottonwood Creek RV Park, Les and Sheri for putting together this excursion. This is also the same group that has been getting together almost every afternoon for "happy hour"!